This is a Guest Blog Post from Christopher (Chris) Hart

Christopher Hart - Art Supplies Every Artist Must Have

Chris Hart

My guess is that the salespeople at the local Office Depot or Staples won’t be a whole lot of help if you ask them what you might need for a home art studio. If you’re lucky, you live close enough to an art supplies store.

If not, you have two choices. You can move or print out my list and start shopping! Good luck!

• Drafting table & chair
• Built in cabinets, a set of cabinets, or a tabouret 
•  Computer & scanner 
•  Mobile desk lamp that be adjusted to point in any direction
• Light box
• Desktop file organizer
• Desktop containers to hold pencils, paper clips, etc.
• Stuff: two sided tape, taper, paper clips, to-do pad, etc. 
•  Art pencils (B, HB, F & H grade) 
•  Eraser tips 
•  A big red eraser
• Small jar of white correction paint
• Small plastic cup of water & paper towels (for washing out the paint brush)
• Thin brush for the correction paintFine point black marker
• Thick black marker
• Set of colored markers
• Set of colored pencils 
•  Electric pencil sharpener
• 12” & 18” rulers and a few plastic triangles of various sizes.
• Paper – any type, as long as the dimensions can fit into a scanner.
• Reference material

I hope that’s helpful. 

To read my blogs, and use the free drawing tutorials and how-to-draw videos, please visit my website at: www.chrishartbooks.com

I look forward to seeing you there!

Chris Hart - Setting Up Your Art Studio

I’m often asked what a person needs to get started drawing. Honestly, you don’t need much more than a pencil and paper. It’s not like painting or sculpting: no smock, no mess, no clean up. Is this great or what? But -- if you’re ambitious abed serious about your art, you may want to go further and set up your own studio. It can be in a spare bedroom, the basement or garage, even the attic. You don’t need much space, but you’ll need more stuff. 

There’s not much that’s more frustrating than coming home with a bunch of art supplies, ready to get started, only to find out that you’re missing some stuff because it wasn’t on your list of things to get. That’s why I wanted to share with you a complete list, the granddaddy of all manga and cartooning lists, so you can take it with you when you go to the art store.

Here ya go:

 

COMPLETE LIST OF ART SUPPLIES

• Drafting table & chair
• Built in cabinets, a set of cabinets, or a tabooed
• Computer & scanner 
• Mobile desk lamp that be adjusted to point in any direction 
• Light box
• Desktop file organizer
• Desktop containers to hold pencils, paper clips, etc.
• Stuff: two sided tape, stapler, paper clips, to-Do pad, etc.
• Art pencils (B, HB, F & H grade)
• Eraser tips
• A big red eraser
• Small jar of white correction paint
• Small plastic cup of water & paper towels (for washing out the paint brush)
• Thin brush for the correction paint 
• Fine point black marker
• Thick black marker 
• Set of colored markers
• Set of colored pencils
• Electric pencil sharpener
• 12” & 18” rulers and a few plastic triangles of various sizes.
• Paper – any type, as long as the dimensions can fit into a scanner.
• Reference material

I hope that’s helpful.

To read my blogs, and use the Free drawing tutorials and how-to-draw videos, please visit my website at: www.chrishartbooks.com

I look forward to seeing you there!

About the Author

Christopher Hart is the leading art instruction author of books on cartooning, manga, figure drawing and more. His books have sold over 3.5 million copies and are translated into 20 languages. He is published by Random House and Soho Publishing.

Christopher Hart - How to Draw Great Cartoon Characters

Great cartoon characters don't just happen.  They are carefully designed to fit specific types-the bratty sibling, the ditsy suburbanite, the evil spy. Readers instantly recognize these types because cartoonist’s combines specific, well-known physical attributes to create them.

How do we come up with the inspiration for great cartoons? It's a well-guarded secret, but I am going to break the cartoonist's code of silence and reveal it to you.chris hart, We look for inspiration to the weird and whacky neighborhoods where all of the quirky characters already exist.

Goofy neighborhoods just ooze great characters. And each neighborhood is unique, a fast-talking city character walks and dresses a lot differently than one from the sticks. What about the prep-school kid from Connecticut who meets his cousin from Brooklyn for the first time? You can see the comic scenes start to play out in your mind, can't you? And don't forget the mother of all cartoon neighborhoods: the suburb.

Cartooning: The Ultimate Character Design Book covers all these recognizable types. Plus, a lot more. I've designed it to be helpful to beginners who want to learn the most current style of cartooning. But it's also a wonderful resource for experienced artists who enjoy developing new and original characters.

The first half of Cartooning: The Ultimate Character Design Book takes you through cartooning with an emphasis on character design, so you start out learning to draw eye catching characters. The second half shows you specific character types and demonstrations precisely how to create them. We'll go neighborhood-to-neighborhood to find all of today's most popular cartoon character types: from suburbanites to big city dwellers, from the country-club blue-blood set to the glitterati of Hollywood and Beverly hills.

Character design is a skill you can learn quickly. However you need character-driven instruction to do it. In How to Draw Great Cartoon Characters you'll get extensively illustrated clues and pointers specifically targeted to show you exactly how to create character types. christopher hart, The style will focus on its ultra-current and on-target for today's cartoonist-which is what you are. So pick up a pencil and hop on board!

 

Chris Hart  - Anatomy Book for Comic Book Artists

Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference for Comic Book Artists is highly readable - maybe the first highly readable anatomy book. Most only use the Latin names of the muscles. Making things hard to remember and even harder to understand. In this book, you'll not only get the Latin names of the muscle groups, but also the regular, everyday terms for them, as well. For example, if a muscle is labeled scapula, I'll also tell you that this is the shoulder blade.

You'll also learn how to draw a variety of body types, and how to adjust the posture as the body ages. And so that you'll have plenty of examples on which to practice, this book has many step-by-step illustrations of original, exciting comic book characters that incorporate the muscles and anatomy you'll be learning.

Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference for Comic Book Artists closes with two invaluable sections: the first describes the steps to take to get published in comics so that you don't have to invent the path to success-it's all explained to you, in detail; you'll learn exactly how to capitalize on each success in order to reach the top strata in the business. Christopher Hart, The second features three amazing interviews with editors from two giants of the comics industry: Marvel Comics and Dark Horse Comics. You'll get insider viewpoints on how the comic book business works, how to approach editors, and what the most important qualities are in a comic book artist. 

Christopher Hart - Human Anatomy Made Easy?

While most anatomy books focus on drawing individual muscle groups, rarely do they tie them all together by demonstrating how to achieve a graceful, flowing look to your drawings. In Human Anatomy Made Amazingly Easy, you'll learn the secrets to drawing action poses, seated poses, walking poses, reclining and gesture poses. You'll learn a shorthand method for drawing the figure that begins with easy shapes, rather than a complicated series of steps. 

No one has access to a model at all times. As an artist, you must be able to draw life from your imagination. In this regard, anatomy alone won't help you. You need a reliable method of self-checking the proportions of the head and figure so that you can tell where your drawings are off, and make necessary adjustments to correct it. These self-checking methods will be clearly illustrated and easy to follow. 

It has been said that life drawing is the foundation of all art. It is my belief that this foundation should be fun, easy, but most of all, useful.

About Chris Hart

Christopher Hart is the leading author of How-To-Draw books on art instruction. He has had over 50 books published, which have sold over 3 million copies, domestically. He is published by Random House, the world's largest publisher. Chris' books are also international hits, having been translated into more than 20 languages. His books cover a wide array of popular, contemporary drawing subjects, from cartoons to manga, from animals to human anatomy, from basic drawing to vampires, and more. His work is noted for personality-packed characters and humorous writing. In addition, his books are profusely illustrated with clear step-by-step instructions. Visit Chris Hart at www.chrishartbooks.com for tutorials, art exams, and tips and tricks.

Drawing Animals with Christopher Hart

Everyone loves to draw animals. And whether hobbyists or illustrators, cartoonists or painters, comic artists or the new generation of computer and video game animators, anyone who wants to draw animals with authority needs to be well acquainted with their anatomy.

But do all books on animal anatomy have to be so dry and dreary, like textbooks? Must they be either too anatomically detailed? Must they lack clear, step-by-step instructions to help you draw? No! With Drawing Animals Made Amazingly Easy, you'll learn through a step by step approach to drawing, along with a generous amount of tips that call out important details. 

But what makes Drawing Animals Made Amazingly Easy so different is how it relates animal anatomy to human anatomy-something with which you already have a working familiarity. You probably think drawing animals is confusing because animal joints are configured so differently from human joints, right? Well, not so fast. Animal joints actually are positioned very similarly to human joints. (That’s why Christopher Hart will often refer to an animal's forelegs as its “arms” and its hind legs as its “legs”.) Once you get this, drawing animals will be much easier. Think about it. What if every time you looked at a dog, a deer, a lion or a bear, you could instantly tell where the elbow, or the shoulder or the knee or the hip was? Wouldn't that take the mystery out of animal anatomy? After you've read Drawing Animals Made Amazingly Easy by Christopher Hart, you'll never look at an animal in the same light. How animals walk and how they move will make sense to you in a new way. 

In addition, most drawing books only show you highly detailed skeletal and muscular charts of animals in a standing side view, as if this provides you with enough information about anatomy. But skeletal and muscular charts are much too complex, and leave you with lots of unanswered questions. For example: which bone and muscle you should emphasize while drawing an animal? What do the bones look like in a front view or when the animal walks? Anatomical charts are useless unless you are planning to be a veterinarian. This book simplifies animal skeleton specifically for artists, showing only the muscles that are visible near the surface, under the skin. Who cares about the muscles that are so deeply embedded that they never show through to the surface? Artists should draw what they can see-not what would be visible only on an x-ray.